There is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,013,496 a machine and method for labelling bottles in which the label stock in the form of a web of a predecorated, labelled, heat shrinkable thermoplastic sheet material is advanced to a feed drum and rotary knife. The feed mechanism for the web and the feed drum and knife are driven by a common drive means. Also, the machine feeds bottles into pockets on a bottle turret mechanism timed from a conveyor and worm and synchronized with the feed of the label stock. The feed drum and knife produce lengths of label stock which are picked up by rotatable mandrels carried on the turret aligned over the bottle carrying pockets thereof. The machine winds each length of the label stock around a mandrel and side seals a seam thereof into a tube or sleeve form of a label which is axially shifted onto the coaxially located bottle in the pocket of the machine turret.
In the operation of the machine just described, any interruption in the flow of bottles into the machine will ordinarily result in the uncontrolled, continued production of label tubes or sleeves. The machine produces one sleeve for each bottle pocket on the turret while in operation, and if any pocket of the turret or a number of them fails to receive a bottle from the input line of the bottle supply, the mandrels continue to produce label sleeves which are discharged therefrom and wasted, or as may often happen, discharged freely into the machine to cause jam-ups or the like.